What Mitt Romney Is Really Worth: An Exclusive Analysis Of His Latest Finances

This is a version of a story that appears in the June 4, 2012 issue of Forbes Magazine.

Mitt Romney isn’t the richest person to ever run for President – Ross Perot had him beat by a factor of ten. And if he’s elected, inflation adjustments might favor sprawling plantation owners like Washington and Jefferson, or Kennedy if family assets counted. But there’s no denying that in terms of total dollars a President Romney would be the wealthiest White House occupant ever, and would be even wealthier had he not set aside a trust, now worth $100 million, for his 5 boys. So just how rich is he?

Forbes spent the past month trying to answer that question definitively. The core basis for our valuation comes from Romney himself – specifically, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics disclosure forms, which he filed in August 2007 and August 2011, plus discussions with high-level Romney officials familiar with specific changes to his holdings since that last report. Of course, those disclosures, taken at face value, are about as concrete as a campaign promise, with vague asset ranges (“$1 million to $5 million”) and definitions.

Seeking to remove as much guesswork as possible, we assigned a value to every single asset Mitt and Ann Romney own – 184 in all across the couple's two blind trusts, IRAs and outright holdings. Our core method: noting the shift in ranges between the 2007 filing, the 2011 filing and now (much of his wealth has been consistently held over the whole period). Comparing which assets changed brackets – or didn’t – with their underlying price fluctuation (or in some cases, a good comparable) over that period, we were able to get better estimates of where each fell in the range. Supplemented by a dozen interviews – from local real estate experts to private equity partners – we get a detailed look at the current state of Mitt’s money, pinpointing his net worth at $230 million, split between 9 different asset classes. Highlights include the sale of nearly all of his individual equities - he sold 71 stocks since his last disclosure - and a big move into cash. He now holds $16 million, up from $1 million in August. More details on his net worth and where he invests are outlined below:

Debt Securities: +$91 million

Romney has the biggest chunk of his money invested in debt securities including $36 million worth of Federal Home Loan Banks consolidated obligations and an estimated $10 million worth of structured notes from Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas. In recent months he dumped foreign equities held through Thornburg Investment Management and bought notes from the governments of Canada, Australia and Sweden, giving the former governor some international exposure without the potential political liability of holding foreign companies. Also in this category is a personal loan of approximately $400,000 made to the family's horse trainer, and a loan secured by a suburban home in Missouri, Tex.

Bain Alternative Investments: +$52 million

At the behest of Bain & Company founder Bill Bain, Romney launched private equity offshoot Bain Capital in 1984. When he departed the buyout firm 15 years later, Romney left with a retirement package that gave him a share of profits flowing from all Bain funds until February 2009 plus the right to invest in Bain funds alongside his former partners. Romney currently holds stakes in dozens of Bain funds.

While Romney does not hold many stocks directly, he does take advantage of mutual funds and ETFs to maintain equity exposure at home and overseas with ETFs covering US, European and Latin American markets. Among his top holdings are an S&P 500 ETF, an S&P Europe 350 ETF, Goldman Sachs-managed mutual funds and SPDRs.

The Romneys own three properties now: a La Jolla, Calif. beach house that they bought for $12 million in 2008 but was reassessed last year at $8.7 million (a local agent thinks that even that figure is "pie in the sky" today), a townhouse condo in Belmont, Mass purchased for $895,000 in 2010 and an $8 million summer compound in Wolfeboro, N.H., on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, consisting of a main home, a converted stable and other land.

Cash: +$16 million

Since August Romney's cash, including bank deposits, money market accounts and international currencies, has jumped $15 million from an estimated $1 million. In addition to United States dollars, Romney now holds small amounts of cash in Australian and Canadian dollars and British pounds.

J. Willard Marriott, Romney's namesake.

Individual Equities: +$600,000

Sources told Forbes that over the past nine months Romney has dumped 71 stocks and ADRs worth an estimated $6 million, including McDonald's, Google, Apple, JPMorgan and Walmex. He holds just three individual stocks today: Marriott International, Marriott Vacations Worldwide and Ford Motor. Romney has long ties to Marriott and the company's founding family, fellow Mormons: he was named after the chain's founder, J. Willard Marriott, a friend of his father's, and served on the Marriott board for more than a decade, departing in January 2011 ahead of his presidential bid. Ties to Ford? The son of an auto executive, he owns a 2005 Ford Mustang.

The Romneys' Oldenburg mare, Rafalca.

Transportation: +$425,000

Romney owns horses through Rob Rom Enterprises, LLC, a Moorpark, Calif.-based entity that has a one-third stake in Rafalca, a 15-year-old Oldenburg mare that represented the U.S. in the Reem/Acra World Cup Final in the Netherlands in late April. Ann, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, rides horses as a form of therapy. She and her husband reportedly ride such breeds as Austrian Warmbloods and Missouri Fox Trotters. Also counted are their four cars: a 2002 Chevy pickup, a 2005 Ford Mustang and two Cadillacs.

Gold: +$260,000

While the bulk of the Romneys' investments are held in blind trusts, the couple owns a quarter of a million in gold directly.

Mitt Romney's Total Wealth: $230 million

Methodology: Forbes analyzed 184 assets belonging to Romney to come up with a net worth. Assets that jumped to a higher bracket from one disclosure to the next were valued at the 25th percentile of the current range, while those that fell were valued at the 75th percentile of the current range. Assets that stayed within their bracket were appreciated at the market rate from their initial median value through May 14; benchmark indexes were used as proxies for nonmarketable assets. Real estate was valued based on current property values; for cars we used the values as assessed by the local assessor's office.

As a member of the Forbes Wealth team, I've spent countless hours poring over the SEC filings and public records of the billionaires of the Forbes 400. I've valued private companies from gypsum producers to the world's largest restaurant chain and interviewed some of Americ...